The cards cost 20 each. Visit sky.com/replacecard Get a replacement card to pay. If you bought or replaced your current viewing card before 1 May 2006, you have to pay, but they are free if you bought or replaced your viewing card after 1 May 2006.

If you do nothing, you will no longer be able to receive FIVE USA, FIVE USA+1, FIVER, FIVER+1, Channel 4 HD and Sky3.

FIVE can still be watched, but you will have to do this via the "other channels" system.

Another option, from around 50 is to change your box for a new Freesat box, see Upgrading from Sky to Freesat. This requires no card and most of the channels on Freesat from Sky and does provides all the public service channels including those from ITV, Channel 4 and FIVE.

Freesat HD boxes are around 150, and this provides BBC and ITV HD, and is expected to have Channel 4 HD and FIVE HD very soon. Freesat+ boxes provides the facilities of Sky+ without any subscription, and cost from 250.

To add the free to air FIVE to an existing Sky box

First press the SERVICES button on the remote.

1

USING YOUR SKY DIGIBOX

2

TELEPHONE NUMBERS

3

PARENTAL CONTROL

4

SYSTEM SETUP

5

FAVOURITE CHANNELS

6

OTHER CHANNELS

Now press button 4 for System Setup.

09:44am Sat 29 Aug

SYSTEM SETUP

1

PICTURE SETTINGS

2

SOUND SETTINGS

3

LANGUAGE & SUBTITLES

4

ADD CHANNELS

5

SYSTEM DETAILS

6

SIGNAL TEST

7

SYSTEM TEST

Now press button 4 again for Add Channels. From this screen press 10773to change the Frequency value, and then use the green arrow buttons to change all the values so they are exactly as shown, and the 'Find Channels' box has the highlight.

Frequency (GHz)

10.773

Polarisation

H

Symbol Rate (Mbaud)

22

FEC

5/6

Find Channels

Reset Symbol Rate & FEC settings

Now press SELECT. After about ten seconds the following screen appears. Use the green arrow buttons and the yellow button to put a tick against the line marked FIVE, as shown.

09:44am Sat 29 Aug

NEW CHANNELS

BBC One London

BBC Two England

BBC Four

CBBC

CBeebies

FIVE

Store Channel

Press SELECT to continue

Now press SELECT.

09:44am Sat 29 Aug

ASTRA CHANNEL SCAN

FOR YOUR INFORMATION

Channel line-up complete

Press SELECT to continue

Now press SELECT.

To watch FIVE

To watch FIVE, press SERVICES then selection option 6 from the menu, and select FIVE from the list.

Wol sorry but one of our bigest problems is trees. If the tree is 200 yards the problem is with the movement of the tree causing the signal to break up. If the problem is just one tree could moving your aerial to the side of your house cause your aerial to miss the tree . If your wall is strong you could have a large mast fitted the largest mast we fit is 20 ft but this looks dreadfull, and cost a lot. Your only other solution might be freesat. Have a local aerial rigger come and have a look dont use the national free phone riggers. Hope this helps

mazbar, Thanks very much for your comments. I have being giving this some thought & have decided to invest in a Freesat set up. After reading the brilliant adice on this site I will be having a go at fitting my own system. Cheers & thanks to all !

Hi I have just ditched sky and gone with the freesat from sky, however I miss my record facility, trying to work out which box I need to buy to record programmes, also I would like to be able to record onto a disc so when I go away for 3months in winter I can take some films series erc with me, can anyone advise a techno phobe like me please

Pam Wilkins: The problem as I see it with what you are wanting to do would be caused by the length of time you are away, as you would really require to be carrying quite a number of DVD's to cover that sort of time.

If you are driving to wherever you go then I would have suggested a Freesat twin tuner PVR such as a Humax FoxSat or similar, as that could easily hold enough video to cover the period mentioned, and all you would require to do is to take the unit with you, plugging it into your TV at your destination, Satellite inputs being left unconnected of course. (I actually do this when I go away rather than rely on TV programmes)

If however you are travelling by air etc then you really have no choice but to use DVD's, and you should look along the lines of devices like Panasonics DMR-XS380EBK, this being a Freesat HD twin tuner DVD recorder with a hard drive, this records programmes directly onto its hard drive like a PVR, then you can transfer them onto the built in DVD, although this only in normal definition, not in HD.

That said though, and as you will probably gather, you can do exactly the same thing if you have a Freesat PVR, as all you then require to do is transfer whatever you require onto a separate DVD recorder coupled via scart leads from the PVR.

I actually recommend this way, as these combined units such as the Panasonic mentioned are not without their problems, as individual units although taking up slightly more space are generally more reliable.

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